Since 1874

When the Earl of Ilchester entered into possession
of the Holland estate the total income from
rents was £3,227 (of which approximately £130
was for property in Hammersmith). The rate of
interest on the mortgage debt of £40,000 was at a
stated 5 per cent, reducible to 4 per cent by
punctual payment. Lady Holland's annuity had
also to be paid, and was, in fact, to be secured by
rent charges on the Earl's Dorset property.
Holland House and its grounds had to be preserved,
at least during Lady Holland's lifetime,
and, far from gaining any immediate advantage,
the Earl appears to have taken on a financial
burden. The reversionary value of the estate was,
of course, considerable, but the first building leases
were not due to fall in until 1904. For several
years little or no gain could be expected, and it
appears that the Earl was in part motivated by the
desire to preserve Holland House and its grounds
from speculators. Owning extensive property in
Dorset, he could afford to underwrite the relatively
unprofitable Kensington estate until in the
twentieth century its potential value could be
realized by himself or his heirs. Lady Holland's
was a most fortunate choice. After her death in
1889, the Earl and his successors lived in Holland
House, and after the mansion had been largely
destroyed by bombing during the war of 1939–45
its remains and its park were preserved for the
enjoyment of the public.

Some immediate development of the estate
was, however, necessary to offset the large outgoings,
and had clearly been anticipated in the
negotiations for the sale. (fn. 11) When more definite
plans were announced later in 1874 Lady Holland
objected, although it is difficult to see that she had
any real cause for complaint. In the hope of
reassuring her the Earl wrote, 'We [the Earl and
his agent, Robert Driver] settled not to think of
any of the land at present beyond the Little
Holland house portion . . . and as we could not
touch even that till after Xmas not be in a hurry to
dispose of it hoping to get offers for a large class
of house; the only piece we have offered at all at
present is to V. Princeps [sic] to build a studio and
house for Watts and that is not settled yet. We had
no dealings with any builders, and as to £70 a year
houses, the only plan my Agent drew out simply
so as to get to the value of the land was villas with
gardens £200 and over, the smallest we should
think of but hoping to get offers for larger
tenancies.' Lady Holland was not mollified, however,
and when building was under way she wrote
that 'all the building is a very bitter and sad pill
to me'. (fn. 12)

The development in question was in Melbury
Road, which was named after one of the Earl's
properties in Dorset, and consisted of a mixture
of houses designed by leading architects for successful
artists, and in one case by an architect for his
own residence, interspersed with large houses
erected by builders as speculative ventures.

Little Holland House, which stood in the way
of the new road, was demolished in 1875 (fn. 13) and
the first house to be built was for George Frederic
Watts. He had lived at Little Holland House for
many years, and he transferred this name to his
new house, which was designated No. 6 when
numbers were assigned in 1878. The other
artists' houses in Melbury Road which were
begun in 1875 or 1876 were Nos. 2 and 4, a
semi-detached pair, for (Sir) Hamo Thornycroft;
No. 8 for Marcus Stone; No. 14 for Colin
Hunter; No. 29 (originally No. 9) for William
Burges; and No. 31 (originally No. 11) for (Sir)
Luke Fildes. These houses are described on pages
142–9. Nos. 6 and 14 have been demolished.

While these important houses were being
erected other plots in Melbury Road were taken
by speculative builders for equally large, if aesthetically
more pedestrian houses. George Martin
of Putney built two red brick and stone houses
on the north side of the road to the west of William
Burges's Tower House. These (originally Nos.
5 and 7) were replaced by the neo-Georgian
terrace, Nos. 19–27, in 1968–9. On the south
side of the road, between Stone's and Hunter's
houses, William Turner of Chelsea built two
detached four-storey houses (Nos. 10 and 12).
These were demolished c. 1964 for the erection
of Stavordale Lodge. To the south of Colin Hunter's
house, Turner also built the semi-detached
pair, Nos. 16 and 18; William Holman Hunt
lived in No. 18 from 1903 until his death in 1910.
All of these houses were built under ninety-year
leases at ground rents of between £70 and £100
with the first two years at half rent. (fn. 14)

The initial phase of building in Melbury Road
was concluded with the erection of two more
houses on the north side at the Addison Road end.
George Stephenson of Chelsea gave notice of his
intention to build two houses in 1879 and 1880,
but apparently only completed one. This was the
original No. 1, for which he was granted a ninety-year
lease in January 1880. (fn. 15) The style of the
house appears to have been derived from the work
of J. J.Stevenson. In 1935 it was divided and is
now known as East House and West House. No.
13 (originally No. 3) was probably completed by
Lucas and Son of Kensington Square, and an
eighty-seven-year lease was granted to James
Stratton Thompson of Cromwell Road in 1882
at an annual ground rent of £100. (fn. 16)

The leasing of plots on the south side of Melbury
Road necessitated the demolition of some
of the farm buildings attached to Holland Farm.
This survival of the estate's rural past had inevitably
shrunk in area as building activity progressed.
In 1854, when a new twenty-one-year lease
was granted, the farm consisted of sixty-three
acres, chiefly pasture, and was let at an annual
rent of £250. (fn. 17) This lease, however, contained a
provision that Lord Holland could take back any
part of the farm for building purposes on granting
the lessees an abatement of rent, and by the time
the estate was sold in 1874, Holland Farm brought
in only £112 in rent. (fn. 10) The farmhouse itself was
rebuilt in 1859 (fn. 18) (it was later converted into the
present No. 10A Holland Park Road, see page
136). As compensation for the loss of some of
their land and buildings in 1875 the farm's
tenants, Edmund Charles Tisdall and Elizabeth
Tunks, were allowed to build a new dairy with a
shop and cow-stalls on the island site bounded by
Holland Lane, Melbury Road and Kensington
High Street. (fn. 1) William Boutcher of Lancaster
Road, Notting Hill, was the architect and Thomas
Holland of Newland Terrace, Kensington, was
the builder. (fn. 20) Boutcher provided a red-brick
front with a curved gable to Kensington High
Street to harmonize with the nearby lodges at
the entrance to Holland Park, and the building
survived, latterly in the possession of the United
Dairies, until the 1960's, when it was demolished.
The parkland of Holland House provided pasture
for the cows when all other available land had been
built upon, and Sir Luke Fildes's son could
remember from his youth the tinkling of the cows'
bells as they were brought down Holland Lane
by the side of No. 31 Melbury Road. (fn. 21)

For a short distance Melbury Road took the
course of Holland Lane and, therefore, skirted
the front park of Holland House. A lodge had
been built on the east side of Holland Lane (on
the site of Nos. 41–45 Melbury Road) in 1864, (fn. 22)
but no more building was undertaken there until
after Lady Holland's death, no doubt because
she had proved so sensitive about intrusions upon
her view from the windows of Holland House.
In 1892, however, No. 47 (originally No. 13)
Melbury Road was built for Walford Graham
Robertson, the artist and playwright, and this was
followed shortly afterwards by Nos. 55 and 57
(formerly Nos. 15 and 17). These houses are
described on pages 149–50.

The first occupant of No. 57 was (Sir) Ernest
Debenham, who in 1900 took a lease of a piece
of ground to the south of this house with the
intention of having a new house built there.
Despite securing a large piece of ground in
Addison Road in 1905, on which he had a house
built for him by Halsey Ricardo (see page 135),
Debenham still retained the lease of this vacant
plot in Melbury Road. He was allowed to build a
temporary half-timbered studio there in 1910 for
the artist G. Spencer Watson, who had taken up
residence at No. 57. (fn. 23) Finally, in 1925, No. 59
(originally No. 19) Melbury Road was erected
to the designs of Williams and Cox of Covent
Garden. (fn. 24)

At the corner of Melbury Road and the north
side of Holland Park Road stood a group of two-storey
cottages built about 1825 by Joseph Guest,
a carpenter, and Charles Tomlinson, a brick-layer
(Plate 51a). (fn. 25) These survived until 1905, (fn. 2)
an incongruous and no doubt somewhat displeasing
intrusion into the world of the socially successful
artists who lived in the expensive houses nearby.
They were demolished for the erection of Nos.
20 and 22 Melbury Road and Nos. 2–8 (even)
Holland Park Road (Plate 51b) to the designs of
Charles J. C. Pawley, architect and surveyor, who
built the new houses as a speculation. (fn. 27)

The presence in Holland Park Road of the
residence of Leighton, the most esteemed of all
late Victorian artists and President of the Royal
Academy from 18–8 until 1896 (see pages 136–41),
made that road a Mecca for aspiring artists. The
south side consisted of a number of small houses
at its eastern end, and the stables and coach-houses
of St. Mary Abbots Terrace. Several of
these were taken by artists during the last quarter
of the nineteenth century and adapted for their
own use. Some new studios were also built. All
have now been demolished for the recent St.
Mary Abbots Terrace development.

On the north side, to the west of the house built
for Val Prinsep (see pages 141–2), stood a charity
school which had been established in 1842 by
Caroline Fox, the sister of the third Lord Holland,
for the education of children of the labouring,
manufacturing and other poorer classes of
Kensington. When the school was taken over by
the London School Board in 1876, the Board
decided that the premises were no longer satisfactory
and resolved to remove the school to a
new site in Silver Street (now the northern end
of Kensington Church Street). (fn. 28) The site in
Holland Park Road was sold at auction in 1877 for
£2,650, and the school buildings were replaced by
the picturesque group of six two-storey studio residences
arranged round a courtyard with an arched
entrance, originally simply called 'The Studios'
and now Nos. 20–30 (even) Holland Park Road.
They were probably all built in 1878–9 by Arthur
Langdale and Company of Brompton. (fn. 29) The
house at the end of the courtyard, Court House or
No. 24A Holland Park Road, was built in 1929
to the designs of A. M. Cawthorne. (fn. 30)

Nos. 32 and 34 Holland Park Road were built
in 1900 to the designs of Albert E. Cockerell on a
piece of ground which had been the entrance to a
riding school situated at the back of Nos. 27–31
Addison Road. (fn. 31)

The importance of this small corner of the
Holland estate as a centre for the artistic 'establishment'
is indicated by the fact that in 1896,
the year of Leighton's death, six Academicians
were living in Holland Park Road and Melbury
Road (Leighton, Prinsep, Thornycroft, Watts,
Stone and Fildes) as well as one associate member
(Hunter). J. J. Shannon was also to become an
associate in the following year and a full Academician
later. Of other artists who were not
members of the Royal Academy, the most famous
was probably Phil May, the cartoonist and
illustrator, who lived at No. 20 Holland Park
Road, then known as Rowsley House. In that year
over twenty residents of these two streets can be
identified as artists in the Post Office Directory.

In 1873 Charles Richard Fox died and shortly
afterwards his house, No. 1 Addison Road, and
its extensive grounds were sold for speculative
building. As he had been granted the freehold by
the third Lord Holland, the land no longer belonged
to the Holland estate. (fn. 3) Building began in
1877 along the Uxbridge road frontage, and in
1879 the original northward continuation of
Addison Road which had been closed since 1842
was reopened and named Holland Park Gardens. (fn. 33)
This was also the name first adopted for
the terraces built along the main road until they
were renamed and renumbered as part of Holland
Park Avenue in 1934. Nos. 94–100 (consec.)
Addison Road were also built in c. 1880 (No.
96 since demolished). Some of the grounds which
had formerly belonged to Fox's house were used
for the Holland Park Tennis Club, and when the
house was demolished a wing survived as the
club-house and retained the address No. 1 Addison
Road. The blocks of flats to the north of this,
Holland Park Court and Carlton Mansions,
were erected at the turn of the century to complete
building on Fox's former land. (fn. 34)

Most of these buildings are of little architectural
merit, but Nos. 133–159 (odd) Holland
Park Avenue (originally Nos. 2–15 Holland
Park Gardens) form a pleasant terrace of linked
pairs of three-storey brick and stucco houses,
set back from the main road; they were built
between 1878 and 1881 and the builder was
probably George H. Gorringe of Chelsea. (fn. 34)

Another building on the land which formerly
belonged to Fox is the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial
School, formerly known as Addison Hall.
This terra-cotta-fronted building was erected
partly as a school and partly as a hall for public
entertainment in 1885. The proprietress of the
school, called the Kensington Academy for Girls,
was Miss Mary Grant. The architect was named
as Hugh McLachlan, but Miss Grant claimed
to have provided the specifications herself and
had the hall built by direct labour. She had difficulties
in securing a licence from the London
County Council for public functions to be held
in the hall in order to pay for her school, and in
1895 one of her mortgagees secured a foreclosure
and took possession of the building. Miss
Grant removed her school to No. 96 Addison
Road, and the new owners shortly afterwards
secured the requisite licence for public use of the
hall, which was used for various entertainments,
including dances, lectures and, occasionally,
theatrical performances, until 1914, when the
building was taken over for the newly formed
Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School. (fn. 35) In
1961–3 additional buildings for the school were
erected on the opposite side of Addison Road to
the designs of David Stokes and Partners. (fn. 36)

The first large blocks of flats were introduced
into the Holland Park area at the turn of the
century when Oakwood Court was built (Plate
112d). The site of the flats, to the north of St.
Barnabas' Church, no longer belonged to the
estate, most of the land having been sold to James
McHenry after his purchase of Oak Lodge. The
Oakwood Court development brought about the
final disappearance of the ponds called The
Moats, which McHenry had converted into an
ornamental lake, and necessitated the demolition
of Oak Lodge and the three large houses in
Addison Road to the north of it. The builders,
who had acquired the freehold of the site, were
the brothers William Henry and Edward James
Jones of Victoria Street, Westminster. Notice of
their intention to build the first blocks was given
to the district surveyor in August 1899. An
application made to the London County Council
in 1900 by William G. Hunt, architect and
surveyor, of Bedford Gardens, Kensington, for
approval of the frontage line to Addison Road
suggests that he may have been the author of the
designs for most of the blocks, although these were
built over a period of several years and other
architects were involved. (fn. 37) The only radical
departure from the initial design came in 1928–30
when Nos. 31–62 Oakwood Court were erected
to the designs of Richardson and Gill. (fn. 38)

In the twentieth century the Holland estate
has been further reduced in size by the sale of
the few remaining freeholds to the west of Addison
Road and several houses on the west side of
Addison Road itself. Within the area retained,
however, a vigorous policy of development has
been pursued. The first new scheme of any size
was Ilchester Place, which was completed in 1928
to the designs of Leonard Martin (Plate 50d). (fn. 39)
Melbury Court was built at approximately the
same time on part of the Kensington High Street
frontage which had formerly belonged to the
front park of Holland House; the design was by
Francis Milton Cashmore of the architectural
firm of Messrs. Joseph. (fn. 40) The southern part of
Abbotsbury Road, named from one of the Dorset
estates belonging to the Earl of Ilchester, was
formed at the same time as Oakwood Court.
Only a few houses were, however, built in the
road before the war of 1939–45; Nos. 3–9 (odd)
date from approximately 1924 and Nos. 8–10
and 24–28 (even) from the 1930's. (fn. 41)

The most significant effect of the war of 1939–1945
on the estate was the sale of Holland House.
The mansion had been severely damaged by bombing
and its restoration as a family residence did not
seem feasible. Soon after the end of the war the
London County Council began negotiations with
the sixth Earl of Ilchester for the purchase of the
house and its grounds in order to preserve a vital
open space in this part of Kensington. Agreement
was reached in 1951 for the sale of the house and
fifty-two acres to the Council for £250,000 and
the transaction was ratified by Act of Parliament
in 1952. (fn. 42) A further Act in 1954 allowed the
restored east wing of the house and part of the
adjoining land to be used for the provision of
youth hostel accommodation, and the King
George VI Memorial Hostel, built to the designs
of Sir Hugh Casson and Neville Conder, was
opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in
1959. (fn. 43)

During the 1950's and 62's building activity
on the estate was as extensive as at any time since
the 1870's. All of the houses and flats on the west
side of Abbotsbury Road to the north of Oakwood
Court, namely Nos. 17–137 (odd) Abbotsbury
Road, Nos. 1–66 (consec.) Abbotsbury Close and
Abbotsbury House, were built during these years
by Wates Limited to the designs of Stone, Toms
and Partners. The same firm of architects
was responsible for the new St. Mary Abbots
Terrace development, which, with Abbot's
House and Kenbrook House, occupies the whole
of the rectangular site bounded by Addison Road,
Holland Park Road, Holland Lane and Kensington
High Street, and which necessitated the
demolition of all the existing buildings on that
site. (fn. 44) Piecemeal redevelopment of several sites
in Melbury Road also took place at this time, and
the east side of Addison Road to the south of St.
Barnabas' Church was completely rebuilt. Another
large-scale development, Woodsford Square,
was begun in 1968 on the site of Nos. 2–7 Addison
Road, where Wates are at present (1972)
building to the designs of Fry, Drew and Partners
an intended total of 130 houses on a site formerly
occupied by six houses and their grounds.

The Church of St. Barnabas, Addison Road

Plates 12, 33d, 33f; fig. 23

In 1822 the Vestry, concerned that the parish
church and the small Brompton Chapel were the
only institutions of the established church serving
the religious needs of the rapidly growing population
of Kensington, appointed a committee to
consider what steps should be taken to remedy the
situation. When the committee reported in 1823
it recommended that two new places of worship
should be built, one at Brompton, and one near
Earl's Court Lane. The Vestry resolved that
only one was necessary, but changed its mind in
1825 when Lord Kensington offered to donate
a site for a chapel at the south end of Warwick
Square. (fn. 45)(fn. 4) The Commissioners for Building
New Churches agreed to grant £10,000 towards
the expense of building a church at Brompton
and a chapel at the west end of the parish, and
Lewis Vulliamy was appointed architect for the
latter. In 1826, however, the site in Warwick
Square was given up, possibly because Lord
Kensington's development there was running into
considerable difficulties which were involving
him in litigation, and Lord Holland, a member of
the original committee which recommended the
building of two new places of worship, provided
an alternative site in Addison Road. The vicar of
Kensington, Archdeacon Pott, reported to the
Commissioners that the new site was an excellent
one, particularly as a road and sewer had already
been constructed. (fn. 46)

Vulliamy had to submit several plans and
specifications to the Commissioners before they
were satisfied that he had achieved the requisite
degree of economy 'consistent with giving to the
Building the character of an Ecclesiastical Edifice'. (fn. 47)
The preparation of the foundations had
begun by October 1826, (fn. 48) although the formal
conveyance of the land to the Commissioners did
not take place until January 1827, (fn. 49) and building
continued until 1829. The contractor for the
whole works was William Woods, who received
£10,012. His original contract was for £9,332
but the site proved to be not quite so ideal as was
first thought and the presence of soft and wet
clay and a vein of quicksand made extra foundations
necessary. These were provided to specifications
by Sir) Robert Smirke. Perhaps Lord
Holland had neglected to inform the parochial
authorities that the site had originally been
covered by ponds. The clerk of works for most of
the period when the church was under construction
was George Gattward and the cost, including
architect's fees and incidentals, was £10,938. (fn. 50)
Apart from the Commissioners' grant, the cost
of both St. Barnabas' and Holy Trinity, Brompton,
which were built simultaneously, was borne
by the parish out of a threepenny church rate.
£10,000 was raised by a series of securities for
£100 each at 4½ per cent. interest, but it was
found necessary to raise an extra £3,500 by the
same means to fit out the new churches for worship. (fn. 51)
St. Barnabas', which was designed to seat
1,330 (818 in rented pews and 512 in free seats),
was consecrated on 8 June 1829 and was designated
a chapel-of-ease to St. Mary Abbots. A
district chapelry was assigned to it in 1842 and
this became a parish under the Act of 1856 for
creating new parishes. (fn. 52)

The church is set on a bend in the road and its
west façade rises from a sweep of steps directly
from the pavement, appearing at an angle when
approached from the south. The building is in
the Tudor Gothic style, a fashionable choice for
1826, when (Sir) Charles Barry provided designs
in the same architectural style for Holy Trinity,
Cloudesley Square, Islington. The eight-bay
side elevations of the have, with large windows set
between narrow stepped buttresses, were originally
surmounted by parapets pierced by trefoil openings
similar to those on the west front, while the
buttresses were capped by pinnacles, now removed,
of 'diminutive and insignificant character'. (fn. 53) The
present battlements on the north and south elevations
were erected towards the end of the nine-teenth
century. In order to counter the thrust of
the broad spreading mass of the building, the tall
and narrow buttresses are set close together. The
close spacing and the height of the transomed
three-light windows add to the effect of loftiness.

As there is no tower, special emphasis was given
to the corner turrets and to the prominent façade
to the road. The octagonal stone turrets, recalling
those of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, have
openwork lights and lower panels with shields;
that at the north-west corner contains the church's
single bell. They are attractive conceits when seen
against the dour expanses of white Suffolk bricks
beneath. The west front has a wide projecting
centre with a large seven-light window beneath
an ornamental parapet with blind trefoil panels,
central finial and flanking pinnacles. Out of the
front projects the western porch, a small-scale
tripartite composition with three doorways each
framed between buttresses crowned by pinnacles,
the central opening being wider and slightly taller
than the others, and surmounted by a low-pitched
gable. The front has lost much of its original
lightness through the replacement in 1957–8 of
the original crocketed pinnacles.

The broad proportions so evident in the exterior
are equally marked inside, where a flat ceiling
borne by nine very long slender transverse ribs
crossed by two longitudinal ribs covers a dramatically
large space (Plate 10b). The church is
planned with a remarkable economy of means, the
main consideration clearly being to provide ample
space for large congregations at a limited cost
without starving the design of ecclesiastical
character. With a shallow chancel dominated by
an uncommonly wide rectangular nave, it is an
example of a building that follows the Georgian
tradition of auditory churches planned rather
more for sermons and hymns than for sacramental
worship. The long neat panel-fronted side galleries,
supported by thin cylindrical cast-iron
columns, mask the bases of the windows and were
an alteration to Vulliamy's first design, although
the panel fronts are very much in sympathy with
the original conception. The deep west gallery,
enlarged when the side galleries were added, is
contemporary with the fabric, and in recent years
an entrance lobby has been formed beneath it.
Originally, there was a second gallery above,
'containing the organ in a fine case, and seats for
the charity children'. (fn. 54)

Figure 23:

St. Barnabas' Church, Addison Road, plan

The original chancel was very shallow, being
little more than a niche divided from the nave by a
triple-arched screen flanked on either side by an
identical pulpit and reading desk. The chancel
was first reconstructed in 1860–1 to the designs
of Thomas Johnson, the Lichfield diocesan
architect, the contractors being McLennan and
Bird. (fn. 55) The alterations enabled 125 more seats
to be provided. The screen, pulpit and reading
desk were removed at this time, for the very wide
arch to Johnson's rearranged chancel was unscreened.
The present chancel, dark in contrast
to the nave, is essentially of 1909, when the east
end of the church was entirely remodelled and
extended eastwards by some fifteen feet, an improvement
which was made possible by a grant of
land from the proprietors of the adjacent blocks
of flats known as Oakwood Court in compensation
for loss of light and air sustained by the church.
The architect for the reconstruction was J. Arthur
Reeve, and the contractor was James Carmichael
of Wandsworth. (fn. 56)

None of Vulliamy's fittings now survive. Some
were taken out in 1861, and several more were
removed in 1885, when the interior was redecorated
in Tudor Gothic style by Dicksee and
Dicksee under the architect Arthur Baker. (fn. 57)
New pews were provided in the nave at this time
and the handsome poppy-headed choir stalls
were fixed in the still short chancel two years later.
Refurnishing continued in the 1890's. The low
marble chancel screen, with its beautifully carved
seated angels on either side of the steps, and the
florid Perpendicular pulpit raised high on an
ornate base, were erected in 1895. The organ
case was provided in the next year. (fn. 58)

The richness of these additions must have emphasized
the inadequacy of the old chancel, and
encouraged a desire to improve it. The opulently
carved stone reredos, with its bold robed and
crowned figure of Christ backed by an aureole
upon a lush foliate ground and flanked in the
lower wings by kneeling angels, was designed by
Reeve as a memorial to the Reverend G. R.
Thornton, vicar from 1882 to 1905, who,
shortly before his death, had been much impressed
by Reeve's reredos at St. Saviour's, Westgate, in
Kent. The stone altar, which was based on
fifteenth-century tomb designs, was removed at
this time, being too small for the new chancel.
Enrichment was completed with the erection of
the stone canopy to the episcopal throne, while the
finely executed piscina and triple sedilia testify to
the wealth of the congregation. Messrs. Turner
carried out the architectural features of the reredos,
and J. E. Taylerson executed the figures. (fn. 56)

The glass of the east and west windows was
transposed in 1895. The glass now in the east
window is by Clayton and Bell, made in 1883.
The window was cleaned, reconstructed and
raised some feet when the chancel was extended
in 1909. The present west window is by O'Connor,
and dates from 1851. The canopies and
diapered background are rich, but the colour is
somewhat garish. Much bright and mostly midVictorian
stained glass survives in the nave.
The two-light window depicting Saints Cecilia
and Margaret by the north-west door underneath
the west gallery is an interesting Arts and
Crafts design, remarkable for its strong drawing
and rich gold and yellow colouring, by John
Byam Shaw. Opposite the organ in the chancel is
a two-light memorial window of 1922 by
Geoffrey Webb, a pupil of Sir Ninian Comper. It
commemorates parishioners killed in the war of
1914–18, their names being recorded on a stone
tablet within a fifteenth-century-style frame in
the south-east corner of the nave. (fn. 59)

Two mural monuments may be noted. That to
George Shaw, the first cousin of John Byam
Shaw, in the north-east corner of the nave, was
designed in 1901 by Gerald Moira and Francis
Derwent Wood (Plate 33d). The pretty monument
of wood to John Byam Shaw on the north
wall of the nave is a delightful composition in the
late fifteenth-century manner, coloured red and
dark green with rich gold detail. There is a small
painting of Our Lady inset in late fifteenth-century
Flemish style, probably by Gilbert Pownall
(Plate 33f). (fn. 60)

The Church of St. John the Baptist, Holland Road

Plates 20, 21; fig. 24

In 1866 the Reverend E. J. May of Nottingham
applied to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for
permission to build a church, the patronage of
which would be vested in himself. The site which
May proposed was on the west side of Holland
Road almost exactly opposite the place where St.
John's was eventually built. The principal reason
which he advanced for the necessity of a new
church was the extensive building operations then
taking place on the Holland estate, and he added
that, 'had not the monetary panic of last summer
taken place, (fn. 5) from 300 to 400 more houses would
have been erected by this time . . . beyond the
large number already erected and mostly inhabited'.
The letter implies that his proposal was
meeting with the opposition of the incumbent of
St. Barnabas', and, although the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners were favourably disposed, the
assent of the Bishop of London could not be
obtained and May's application was rejected.
There may well be a hidden story of disputes over
doctrine, for within a very short time another
clergyman, the Reverend George Booker, had
succeeded where May had failed. The dedication
to St. John the Baptist had been suggested by
May. (fn. 61)

The site for Booker's church was made available through the failure of the builder, James Hall,
to complete Addison Gardens. A piece of vacant
ground lay to the west of the part of the communal
garden which had already been laid out and on this
a temporary iron church was erected at a cost of
£1,700 which was defrayed by Booker; it was
opened for divine service on 27 February 1869.
The permanent acquisition of the site proved a
complicated affair, however. In 1872 John
Beattie and Harry Dowding, who undertook to
complete James Hall's moribund development,
obtained a conveyance of a large piece of land,
including the plot on which the temporary church
stood. (fn. 62) This conveyance made reference to a
prior agreement with Booker, who was eventually
able to purchase the freehold of the church site
for upward of £1,100 in 1875. He conveyed it as a
gift to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1884. (fn. 63)

Plans for a permanent church to the designs of
James Brooks were announced in 1872. The first
designs show a tall western tower with a spire
and, over the crossing, an octagonal lantern tower
topped by a flèche. (fn. 64) No further progress beyond
the laying of the foundation stone was made in
that year, however, and a pastoral letter from
Booker in 1873 contained a cri de coeur about the
difficulties being encountered. 'Thus with no gift
of a site', he wrote, 'hampered by the special
conditions which the circumstances of the land
imposed; with no help from Public Church
Building Funds, and little from private individuals;
having many acquaintances but few friends, and
of those none who could call themselves
wealthy; . . . a wilderness around us, and no
decent path through; this church has had to contend
with overwhelming difficulties which few
others have known'. (fn. 65)

Building proper began with the apsidal section
of the chancel in 1874; the contractor was
Thomas Blake of Gravesend. The remainder of
the east end as far as the crossing was not completed
until 1885, the builders being Turtle and
Appleton. A temporary brick nave was provided
and the church was considered sufficiently far
advanced to be consecrated on 30 March 1889.
The contract for the construction of the nave was
taken by Kilby and Gayford in 1890, and in 1892
the church was finished except for the west end.
By this time both the lantern tower over the
crossing and the western tower had been abandoned,
and Brooks provided a new design for the
west front in which the principal features were a
large rose window and a grand central portal
enriched with figure carving flanked by two
smaller doorways; three deeply recessed porches
were to project in front of these doorways. The
rose window and part of the great doorway were
completed and encased in rough brickwork, but
the remainder of the façade had to await completion
until 1909–11, when the work was carried
out under the supervision of J. S. Adkins,
who had taken over Brooks's practice after the
latter's death. He made several alterations to
Brooks's design, the most important of which were
the substitution of a baptistry for the porch in
front of the central doorway and the enclosing of
the side porches. The work was carried out by
E. A. Roome and Company and the stone carving,
including the statue of St. John the Baptist, was by
J. E. Tavlerson. When finished the façade drew
a scathing comment from Maurice B. Adams:
'St. John's, Holland Road, one of Brooks' most
noble buildings, has been spoiled by the dismal and
incoherent west front. . .; this is to be deplored, as
I think his original design, with the western tower,
was perhaps the best that he ever conceived'. The
total of the accounts submitted for completing the
various parts of the church, including architect's
fees, amounted to approximately £25,000. (fn. 66)

Figure 24:

Church of St. John The Baptist, Holland Road,
plan

Despite the cluster of fussy additions by Adkins,
the west façade of St. John's (Plate 20a) is a
composition of considerable character and emphasis
in the context of Holland Road. Behind the
porches, the west front proper is flanked by corner
buttresses gabled in stages and rising to octagonal
pinnacles. It is pierced by a huge rose window set
within a semi-circular-headed arch surmounted by
an open arcade of seven stepped cusped lancets
that suggest a French ancestry. Its tall gable is
pierced by an arcade of trefoil arches on colonnettes
which is blind except for the central arch.
Above, under the cross that crowns the apex, is a
quatrefoil light.

The main door to the church from the baptistry
porch is richly carved with figures representing
the Wise and Foolish Virgins, added by J. E.
Taylerson in 1909–11. This cathedralesque entrance,
part of the design by Brooks, is French in
manner, and the architectural origins are even
more apparent in the interior of the church
(Plate 21), except that the vaulting springs from
corbelled brackets and is not continued in ribs
down to the floor as would have been the case in a
true French example.

The church is vaulted and huge, all in stone,
and is dignified and solemn. It consists of a fourbay
clerestoried have and aisles; short north and
south transepts, so characteristic of Brooks's work,
with a crossing broader than it is long; a polygonally
apsed chancel; and north and south
chapels, that to the south being the Lady Chapel.

The French flavour of the church is most
marked in the chancel, the style being Burgundian,
but the nave owes something to English Cistercian
prototypes of the thirteenth century. The lighting
is dim and mysterious, and the overall effect is
suitably medieval. The excellent massing and
control of spaces is typical of Brooks at his best,
but the relationship between the spaces is obscured
by the elaborately carved three-arched stone
chancel screen, which he designed in 1895; (fn. 67) by
the similar but modified stone screens in the
arches between the chapels and the transepts; and
by the parclose screens in the chancel arcades.
The sculptured detail and figures tend to be out
of character with the architecture of the church
as a whole. In the nave itself, the praying angels,
suspended at right angles to the walls at the apex of
each arch of the arcade, are particularly unsatisfactory,
and would only make sense as part of a
timber roof.

There is a lavish stone pulpit, above which is a
richly carved wooden canopy fixed to the northwest
pier of the crossing. On either side of the
chancel screen are ambones of white stone
with coloured marble panels and colonnettes.

The Builder commented favourably on the
solidity and massiveness of Brooks's design, and on
the sparing use of ornament, which in 1885
consisted only of dog-tooth carving on the ribs and
capitals. The Architectural Association visited
the church in 1891 to view the vaulting of the
nave, then in course of completion, a sight which
was rare even then. (fn. 68)

The richly gilt polychrome reredos is partly the
work of Brooks and partly that of Adkins. As first
executed in 1892 it was relatively plain and it
stood clear of the apse wall. Subsequently the
statuary and painting were added and it was moved
to the rear of the chancel. In 1909 Adkins gave it
extra height by the addition of a blind arcade
round the apse wall, and the three sides of the
original reredos were separated by projecting piers.
Adkins also designed the reredos in the Lady
Chapel, the altar of which is brightly painted and
has deep relief panels. (fn. 69) Other colour is provided
by the stained glass, of which some good examples
exist in the windows of the apse. Nearly all the
glass is by Clayton and Bell, although there is a
two-light lancet window of 1895 by C. E. Kempe
in the second bay from the east in the south aisle.

No. 8 Addison Road

Plates 90, 91

This remarkable house was designed by Halsey
Ricardo for (Sir) Ernest Debenham, who had
previously lived in another house designed by
Ricardo (No. 57 Melbury Road). No. 8 Addison
Road occupies the sites of three previous houses
(Nos. 8, 9 and 10) and was built under an agreement
of March 1905, Debenham being granted a
lease in July 1906 for seventy-eight and one half
years at an annual rent of £430. By this the lessee
was to be allowed at the end of the term of the
lease 'to take down and remove all or any glazed
tiles wood carving marble and mosaic fastened to
or constituting part of the interior', provided that
he made good with suitable materials. Among the
buildings which Debenham was required to complete
within twelve months of securing the lease
was a 'Motor House'. (fn. 70) The only businesses for
which the premises were originally allowed to be
used were those of an artist, a physician or a surgeon,
but in 1955 permission was given for the
house to be used as a training college for teachers
of dancing and drama, and in 1965 it was taken
as the headquarters and college of the Richmond
Fellowship for Mental Welfare and Rehabilitation. (fn. 71)

The house is an example of the structural
polychromy advocated by Halsey Ricardo in
lectures and papers given over several years. It
represents an attempt to erect a building immune
to the destructive effects of a city atmosphere,
and is the expression of an architecture dependent
on colour rather than on light and shadow.

The elevations consist of three elements: the
basement, forming a podium on which the house
rests; the ground and first floors embraced within
a giant Florentine motif of pilasters carrying
entablatures from which arches spring, and
crowned by a richly modillioned cornice; and an
attic storey over which is a smaller modillioned
cornice. The tall chimneys are decorated with
arches and cornices.

The basement is faced with blue-grey semivitrified
bricks. The pilasters, arches, cornices
and main elements of the house above are of
Doulton glazed terra-cotta known as Carrara
ware, the cream colour being relieved in the upper
stages by bands of different colour. In the panels
formed by this Carrara ware framework, the
walls are faced with glazed Burmantofts bricks,
the lower parts coloured green, and the upper a
bright blue. The roof is covered with green tiles,
semi-circular in section, and imported from Spain.
The walls of the long entrance loggia and the
corridor connecting the house with the breakfast-room
in the garden are lined with De Morgan
tiles.

The main feature of the plan is a central domed
hall around which is a gallery at first-floor level
connecting the upstairs rooms. The dome and
pendentives over the hall are covered with mosaics
depicting subjects from classical mythology and
small portraits of the Debenham family against a
background of sinuous plant patterns; the work
was executed by Gaetano Meo from designs by
Ricardo. The passages, hall and stairs are lined
with De Morgan tiles, mostly in plain colour,
but sometimes forming elaborate patterns in which
the predominant motifs are peacocks and arabesques
of Art Nouveau foliage. The colours,
mainly turquoises, purples and blues, are rich and
glowing. The marble work used in conjunction
with the tiles was supplied and worked by Walton,
Gooddy and Cripps Limited, and the carving
was by W. Aumonier. Marble and tiles are also
used in combination in the sumptuous fireplaces
throughout the house. The main rooms have
ornamental plaster ceilings executed by Messrs.
Priestley from designs by Ernest Gimson. The
library is elegantly fitted out in mahogany with
delicate inlays of wood and mother-of-pearl in
Art Nouveau designs. There is much enriched
glass in the house, designed by E. S. Prior. The
metalwork throughout, including the electric
light switches, was principally designed and made
by the Birmingham Guild of Handicraft. The
builders were George Trollope and Sons with
Colls and Sons. (fn. 72)

Nos. 10 and 10A (South House) Holland Park Road

These two houses, substantially dating from 1892–1893,
were originally one house, which was
known as No. 3 Holland Park Road until 1908
when it was renumbered 10.

The site was formerly occupied by the farm-house
of Holland Farm. The laying out of Melbury
Road in 1875 necessitated the removal of
several of the farm buildings, but the farmhouse,
which had been rebuilt in 1859, was not demolished.
In 1892 the portrait painter (Sir)
James Jebusa Shannon, entered into an agreement
with the lessee, Ethel Tisdall, who was probably
the daughter of Edmund Charles Tisdall (see
page 127), to spend at least £3,500 in rebuilding
or altering the farmhouse and erecting a studio
adjoining. In return Ethel Tisdall was to grant
him a lease for sixty years (the term remaining of a
lease granted by Lord Holland in 1859) at an
annual rent of £282. The plans, by the architects
W. E. and F. Brown, were approved on behalf of
the Earl of Ilchester, who had become the ground
landlord, and work was begun by the builders,
Thomas Gregory and Company, towards the end
of 1892. (fn. 73)

The house and studio were joined together and
remained one unit during Shannon's lifetime.
From the plans, it appears that the structural
core of the western, or residential, part of the
building was provided by the existing farm house,
but the exterior was completely altered to match
the studio which was built to the east. An addition
was made to the north-east of the studio in
1908. After Shannon's death in 1923 the two
parts were divided, the eastern becoming No. 10
and the western No. 10A now called South
House). (fn. 73)

Leighton House: No. 12 Holland Park Road

Plate 77; figs. 25–7

The factors which led Frederic (later Lord)
Leighton to choose a site on the Holland estate
when he decided to have a house built for himself
are described on page 124. Leighton's letters
indicate that he was negotiating for the site in the
summer and autumn of 1864. In August he
wrote to his father, 'As to the possible expense
of the house, my dear Papa, you have taken I
assure you false alarm. I shall indeed devote
more to the architectural part of the building than
you would care to do; but in the first place architecture
and much ornament are not inseparable,
and besides, whatever I do I shall undertake
nothing without an estimate.' In September he
complained about the 'preposterous charge' that
Lady Holland's surveyor, John Henry Browne,
was making for drawing up an agreement and
added, 'My architect is Aitchison, an old friend.' (fn. 75)

A lease of the house was granted by Lady Holland
in April 1866 for ninety-nine years from
1864, an unusual feature of it being a clause
allowing Leighton to remove 'any Chimney
piece in the nature of a Work of Art' and to substitute
a plain marble chimneypiece to the value
of £16, (fn. 76) presumably if he wished to move to
another house. The builders were Messrs. Hack
and Son, and the cost was about £4,500. (fn. 77) The
house, which was ready for occupation by the end
of 1866, (fn. 78) was originally known as No. 2
Holland Park Road until renumbered in 1908.

The extent to which Leighton influenced his
architect, George Aitchison, in the design of the
house has been the subject of much speculation.
Aitchison had a considerable reputation in his
day and was Professor of Architecture at the
Royal Academy from 1887 to 1905 and President
of the Royal Institute of British Architects from
1896 to 1899, but before receiving his commission
from Leighton, whom he had first met in
Italy in 1853, he was chiefly concerned with the
design of commercial buildings. (fn. 79) Leighton himself
received the R.I.B.A. gold medal for the
knowledge of architecture which he displayed in
the backgrounds to his paintings, and no doubt he
had definite ideas about the kind of house he
wanted, but several of the features of Leighton
House reflect Aitchison's ideas about architecture.
On more than one occasion Aitchison exhorted his
fellow architects to break away from too rigid a
dependence on historical styles, particularly in
such matters as the type of mouldings used, and it
is perhaps the care taken over both the design and
execution of details that is the outstanding feature
of the architecture of the house.

Figure 25:

Leighton House, Holland Park Road, plans

The Building News in November 1866 described
the newly built house with approval. It
commented on the originality of detailing and remarked,
'It is the house of an artist, with a large
and lofty studio on the first floor, and it expresses
its purpose honestly to the casual passer-by, and
no more'. (fn. 77) The restrained classical style of the
exterior, executed in red Suffolk bricks with Caen
stone dressings, did not meet with universal
approbation, however, and a few weeks later in the
same journal E. W. Godwin gave an altogether
different verdict. 'Take Mr. Aitchison's house',
he wrote, ' . . . and, allowing for its completion,
what can be said of it, except that from one end to
the other it is altogether unsatisfactory. . . . Mr.
Webb's work, in Mr. Val Prinsep's house next
door, comes into close comparison with it,
and is chiefly admirable for the very things in
which its neighbour is so utterly deficient—viz.,
in beauty of skyline and pleasing arrangement of
gabled mass'. (fn. 80)

Figure 26:

Leighton House, Holland Park Road, elevations and section

Figure 27:

Leighton House, Holland Park Road, details

As first built the house was much smaller than
it is now and the front was only three windows
wide, although it was always intended to extend
this to five bays. The plan was dominated by the
studio on the first floor at the rear, facing north.
It originally measured about forty-five by twenty-five
feet and had a gallery at the east end. At first
the great central window of the studio was stone-framed
but this was soon replaced by an iron-framed
window to let in more light. A stair led
from the east end of the studio to a side entrance
which was to be used by models, Leighton clearly
having a more conventional Victorian sense of
social propriety than his neighbour Val Prinsep,
in whose house the models 'usually come up the
main staircase'. (fn. 81) Apart from the studio the main
room was a lofty hall (Plate 77a), lit principally
by a large skylight in anticipation of later extensions
which were to make it totally enclosed,
Only one main bedroom was included in the plan,
to discourage long-term guests who might interfere
with Leighton's work, although servants'
bedrooms were provided over his first-floor
apartments and were reached by a back stair.
The interior decorations were characterized by a
bold use of colour. The woodwork was generally
lacquered black with parts of the delicate incised
leaf and flower mouldings of the door and window
architraves picked out in gold. The beams supported
by the stone columns of the entrance hall
were painted blue and the sunk ornament above
the capitals silvered. The colour of the studio
walls was red. Among the surviving original
fittings is the drawing-room fireplace, which was
placed directly underneath a window. At night
the window could be covered by sliding shutters
to form a mirror (fig. 27). (fn. 6) Several items of
furniture for the house were especially designed
by Aitchison.

The first addition to the house was made in
1869–70 when the studio was lengthened to the
east. A drawing made by Aitchison in 1870 for
the coloured glass of two windows, which were
inserted as part of this alteration, indicates that the
Arab influence which was later to be so important
was already present at this time. (fn. 82)

Outstanding among several additions made in
1877–9 was the Arab Hall (Plate 77b), built to
house the collection of tiles Leighton had acquired
during his visits to the East. According to
Aitchison and Walter Crane, the design of the hall
was based on the palace of La Zisa in Palermo.
The numerous seventeenth-century tiles are
complemented by the carved wooden Damascus
lattice-work of the same period in the windows
and gallery above. There are also several single
tiles of Turkish origin dating from the previous
century, and even earlier examples from Persia.
The west wall contains a wooden alcove with
inset tiles of the fourteenth century. On each side
are brilliantly coloured plaques with floral patterns,
and several tiles also depict birds. Apart
from the eastern tiles the Arab Hall contains the
work of several outstanding Victorian artists.
The capitals of the smaller columns were modelled
by (Sir) J. Edgar Boehm from Aitchison's
designs, and the birds in the gilded caps of the
large columns were by Randolph Caldecott. The
mosaic frieze was designed by Walter Crane.
Many of the tiles in the passage to the Arab
Hall and elsewhere in the house are by William
De Morgan. The builders were Messrs. Woodward
of Finsbury, and among the specialist contractors
were George P.White of Vauxhall Bridge
Road for the marble work, Burke and Company
for the mosaics, and Harland and Fisher for the
painted decorations executed from Aitchison's
designs. (fn. 83)

At the time the Arab Hall was built the ground
storey at the front of the house was extended to
the west, and the entrance was moved from the
western of the original three bays to the eastern.
The effect of all these additions was the abandonment
of the five-bay symmetrical façade with a
central entrance which had been originally envisaged,
in favour of an asymmetrical grouping.
The cut and moulded brickwork of the new parts
reflects an Islamic inspiration. Aitchison also
provided a winter studio to the east of the main
studio in 1889. Originally it was raised on castiron
columns, but the ground floor has now been
bricked-in. In 1895 he also provided a top-lit picture
gallery on the south side of the studio floor
above the single-storey extension built in 1877–1879. (fn. 84)

After Leighton's death in 1896 several attempts
were made to preserve the house for the nation.
His two sisters, who were his executrices, assigned
the house to representatives of the Leighton
House Committee, which had been formed for this
purpose, and in 1901 the leasehold interest was
offered as a gift to the newly formed Kensington
Borough Council, but negotiations broke down
over the terms of the transfer. A further approach
in 1925 was more successful, and the Council
completed the acquisition of the house when it
purchased the freehold in 1926 for £2,750. (fn. 85)

In 1927 Mrs. Henry Perrin of Holland Villas
Road offered to provide additional exhibition
galleries and chose Halsey Ricardo as the architect.
After several alterations, including a considerable
reduction in the amount of window space originally
intended, Ricardo's designs were accepted.
Approval had to be sought from the Holland
estate under the usual provision that no alterations
to the architectural character of, or additions
to, houses which had been sold could be carried
out without licence. It was suggested in favour of
the extension that it would hide the cast-iron
columns of the winter studio, and permission was
secured. The Perrin Galleries were opened in
1929. (fn. 86) The interior of the ground-floor gallery
was redesigned by Sir Hugh Casson in 1962 to
provide a temporary home for the British Theatre
Museum.

No. 14 Holland Park Road

Fig. 28

This house, which was known as No. 1 Holland
Park Road until it was renumbered in 1908, was
designed by Philip Webb for the painter, Valentine
Cameron Prinsep. The associations of the Prinsep
family with the Holland estate are described on
page 125, and the site for Val Prinsep's new house
was only a short distance from Little Holland
House, where his father lived, and where he had
spent much of his youth in the company of his
mentor, George Frederic Watts. His choice of
Webb as his architect was probably the result of
his early association with William Morris and his
circle.

Webb was working on plans for the house in
1864. (fn. 7) In January 1865 Prinsep entered into an
agreement with Lady Holland to build a house to
the value of at least £1,000, and the contract
drawings were signed by the builders, Jackson and
Shaw, in the same month. A lease for ninety-nine
years from 1864 was granted by Lady Holland
in March 1866 and the house was ready for
occupation by the middle of that year. (fn. 88)

Originally consisting of two storeys and a
basement, the house was built of red brick with a
sparing use of brick dressings. In its apparent
simplicity and absence of ornament, and with its
mixture of segmental and pointed arches to the
doorway and windows, the house reflected Webb's
work at the Red House, Bexley Heath, for
William Morris. The original front, or south,
elevation, which was completely changed by subsequent
alterations by Webb himself (fig. 28),
consisted of three bays made up of two short
gabled wings projecting on each side of a central
recess, the bay to the west, which contained the
doorway, being slightly wider. The rear elevation
was dominated by two huge studio windows admitting
north light, and at the west end of the
studio there was a large oriel window making a
conspicuous feature on the west side elevation.
Several of the windows of the house anticipated
the 'Queen Anne' style.

The studio, which measured forty feet by
twenty-five feet, took up practically the whole of
the first floor. The remaining space was hardly
sufficient for domestic requirements, and the
dining-room, Prinsep's bedroom and a spare bed-room
were all situated on the ground floor.
Prinsep was a bachelor at the time the house was
built, but the original plan allowed for its extension
to the east at a later date.

The first major alterations were made by Webb
in 1877 (fn. 89) when the front was raised by an extra
storey (because of the height of the studio the
rear part of the house had formerly been higher
than the front), and the studio was extended by
arching over the central recess at first-floor level.
This extension led to the construction of a draw-bridge,
which could be raised for the passage of
large canvases, in the gallery which Webb had
originally provided for the studio. In 1892 Webb
added the new wing to the east which had been
anticipated both in the original planning and the
alterations of 1877. This wing, which provided
two more bays to the street elevation, extended
beyond the line of the original garden front to give
the house a reverse L-shape. (fn. 90)

During the twentieth century further considerable
alterations were made, particularly
to the fenestration, and in 1948 the house was
converted into flats. (fn. 91)

In March 1876 Messrs. Adamson and Son of
Turnham Green, builders, gave notice to the
district surveyor of their intention to build two
houses and a studio for 'Mr. Thornicroft'. Although
ninety-year leases of these two houses,
originally Nos. 2 and 4 Melbury Road, were
granted to Thomas Thornycroft, a sculptor, (fn. 92)
they were built for, and in some measure to the
designs of, his more famous sculptor son, (Sir)
Hamo Thornycroft. They are of considerable
interest in conception as a semi-detached pair,
No. 2 being intended for the Thornycrofits' own
residence with a wing containing several studios
added to the south-west, while No. 4 was a
speculation to let or sell in the normal way. How
far Hamo Thornycroft was responsible for the
design of these houses is difficult to estimate, but he
had 'the advantage of suggestions and technical
knowledge afforded by Mr. J. Belcher, architect'. (fn. 93)
It is perhaps significant that when he
wanted another studio built in 1891 he turned to
Belcher, who was a lifelong friend, (fn. 94) to provide the
designs. Certainly this pleasantly asymmetrical
pair, with the huge projecting chimney stack
accentuating the division between the two houses,
shows a careful and sensitive handling.

No. 4 was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Russell
Barrington. Mrs. Barrington, who was the
sister-in-law of Walter Bagehot, was a writer
who also had some pretensions to being an artist.
The house was brought to her attention by
Watts and she persuaded her husband to take it.
'I felt this was indeed a delightful opportunity of
entering into the highest precincts of art under
the most helpful auspices', she wrote later. (fn. 95)
After Leighton's death she became a leading
figure in the movement to preserve Leighton
House as a public memorial.

The working quarters of No. 2 were more
distinctly separated from the living rooms than in
most of the artists' houses of the late Victorian
period. The south-west wing contained a large
studio for sculpture and several smaller ones for
other members of the Thornycroft family. The
single-storey entrance porch to the west of the
house was set in line with the studios and opened
into a small vestibule which led either directly into
the house or, via a gallery, into the studios. This
plan has enabled the house to be converted into
several separate units. In 1931 the present
entrance porch was added, and the old entrance
way and gallery were converted into a separate
dwelling, now known as Melbury Cottage. The
alterations were carried out by A. M. Cawthorne,
architect. (fn. 96) The studios were already subdivided
by this date and are now known as No. 2A
Melbury Road and No. 24B Holland Park Road.
In 1892 a new studio-house (now No. 2B Melbury
Road) was built to the west of No. 2 to the
designs of John Belcher (Plate 84b); the builders
were again Adamson and Sons. (fn. 97) After completion
of this building, Hamo Thornycroft lived there
and No. 2 appears to have been let. (fn. 98)

No. 6 Melbury Road

Plate 76. Demolished

This house was built for George Frederic Watts,
whose previous home for many years, Little
Holland House, had to be demolished for the
laying out of Melbury Road. Watts also called
his new house Little Holland House.

Watts's architect was a friend, Frederick Pepys
Cockerell, the son of Charles Robert Cockerell.
Building began early in 1875 and Watts
was able to take up residence in February 1876.
The Earl of Ilchester granted a lease of the house
to Val Prinsep, who gave up part of his garden
in order to provide Watts's house with extensive
grounds, for a term expiring in 1963 to correspond
with that of Prinsep's own house, No. 14
Holland Park Road. Prinsep immediately sub-let
No. 6 Melbury Road to Watts. (fn. 99)

The eclectic exterior reflected the complex
planning of the interior (Plate 76). This included
three studios on the ground floor, two of them
for painting and sculpture—rising through the
first floor, a small sitting-room on the ground
floor and two bedrooms on the first floor. The
shortage of living rooms was probably deliberately
intended, as in the case of Leighton House, to
enable Watts to pursue his work without interruption
from too many guests. Several additions
were made to the house after Cockerell's death
by George Aitchison, including a picture gallery. (fn. 100)
Watts lived in the house until shortly
before his death in 1904. It was demolished
c. 1965 and replaced by Kingfisher House, a block
of flats.

No. 8 Melbury Road

Plate 78

This house was designed by Richard Norman
Shaw for Marcus Stone. The Royal Academy possesses
drawings for the house dated September
1875, and the builder, W. H. Lascelles, a contractor
often used by Shaw, gave notice to the
district surveyor of his intention to begin building
in December of that year. Stone was granted a
ninety-year lease from 1875 in December 1877 at
an annual rent of £90. (fn. 101) The house was converted into flats c. 1950.

Built of red brick, with cut and moulded brick
dressings characteristic of Norman Shaw's work,
and with several of his tall, narrow sash windows,
the house originally consisted of two tall storeys
over a basement. On the Melbury Road elevation,
which has been little altered, Shaw resolved the
problem of reconciling a domestic front with the
need for ample north light by providing three large
oriel windows taking up most of the second storey.
Originally these oriels were symmetrical, each
one crowned by a tile-hung gable containing a
small window, but the central window was extended
upwards, no doubt to provide more light,
probably shortly after the house was built, and
almost certainly to Shaw's design. (fn. 8) The oriels
were designed to be executed in wood but the
district surveyor refused permission and concrete
had to be used. The first floor was taken up with
the studio and ancillary rooms, including a winter
studio to the east, but the ground floor reflected a
greater concern with domestic comfort than was
required by some of Stone's fellow artists in the
Melbury Road colony. The interior has been
much altered but originally it was described as of a
'quiet and homely character', reflecting 'the
spirit of an Old English Home'. A back stair was
provided for models in a shallow extension
which was built on to the south-western corner
of the house and crowned with a Dutch gable.
The studios were heated by hot-water pipes, but
an angle fireplace was also provided 'for the company
a cheering fire can afford'. (fn. 103)

No. 14 Melbury Road

Plates 81b, 83. Demolished

The last artist to take a plot in Melbury Road
during the initial phase of house building there
was Colin Hunter. He engaged the architect
J. J. Stevenson to provide the designs, and
tenders for building were received in August
1876. The lowest, for £4,594 by J. Tyerman of
Walworth Road, was accepted and work began
at once. (fn. 104) The exterior was of red brick with an
abundant use of cut and moulded brick dressings.
The dominant features of the street front were two
large projecting bays crowned by elaborate gables
containing the ground-floor dining-room and
studio. Between them was a recessed entrance
porch, and, to the west, another recessed part
contained the kitchen. Above the kitchen was a
day-nursery with a two-sided projecting bay supported
by a large bracket. A drawing-room was
also provided on the ground floor in another
projecting bay to the rear, this combination of
kitchen and ancillary rooms with living-rooms and
studio on the ground floor being unique in the
planning of houses in the Holland estate artists'
colony. The first floor was given over to bed-rooms,
dressing-rooms and nurseries, and there
were more bedrooms in the attic. Another entrance,
leading directly to the studio, was provided
to the east, perhaps for models. The house was
damaged during the war of 1939–45 and was
demolished shortly afterwards.

Tower House: No. 29 Melbury Road

Plates 81b, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89; figs. 29–30

This house, numbered 9 until 1967, was designed
by the architect William Burges for his
own occupation. Burges began to make drawings
for the house in July 1875, but his initial
designs differed in some ways from those executed.
In particular, the staircase turret, which is
the dominant feature of the street front and gives
the house its name, did not appear on the first
plan. By the end of the year, however, Burges had
decided on the present form of the house. No
doubt with his designs for Castell Coch still fresh
in mind, he placed the stairs in a circular tower
crowned by a conical cap of slate. A building
agreement was concluded with the Earl of
Ilchester in December 1875 and building began
in 1876. The contractors were Ashby Brothers
of Kingsland Road and the basic cost was estimated
to be £6,000. Burges was granted a lease in
February 1877 for ninety years from 1875 at an
annual ground rent of £50 for the first two years
and £100 thereafter. (fn. 105)

The design stems from French domestic
Gothic of the thirteenth century derived through
the influence of Viollet-le-Duc. It makes use of
themes explored and developed in Burges's work
at Cardiff for the Marquess of Bute. The materials
used are a hard red brick with stone dressings and
grey slates in diminishing courses for the roof.
There are two principal storeys over a basement
and a commodious garret in the roof. The three
main living-rooms on the ground floor form an
L-shaped block with a square entrance hall in the
angle, facing south and east. The circular staircase
tower, flanked by a small gabled wing, is
placed in front of the hall and approached from it
through a pair of pointed arches. A double porch
serves both the main entrance and the garden
door behind it.

The street front (Plate 85a) is characterized by
a striking association of the steep principal gable
and the stair turret. The ground and first floors of
the house are marked by storey-and sill-bands and
in general there are moulded stone dressings to the
eaves and gables of the roof, the chimney stacks
being finished in moulded brick. The larger windows
have stone mullions and transoms with
square or cusped heads to the lights but some of the
smaller openings are arched in brick or have plain
stone lintels. The stone porch has square piers
with carved capitals (the first pier was intended to
be embellished with further carving) and a deep
entablature with an arcaded cornice.

On the garden front (Plate 85b) the western
part is again gabled, matching the gable to the
street, the centre line of this element being emphasized
by a stepped buttress which divides the
pair of windows lighting the library. These have
finely carved lintels and, like the dining-room
windows on the front, emphatically modelled
mullions to the side of the library is a larger
enclosed by glazed screens, is incomplete in its
decoration but has a mosaic floor depicting
Pinkie, Burges's favourite dog. The entrance
hall, to which access is gained through a heavy
bronze-covered door with figure-subjects in relief
panels, rises through two storeys to terminate in a
painted ceiling based on the emblems of the constellations
arranged according to their positions at
the time of the first occupation of the house. The
hall has a fine mosaic floor representing a labyrinth
in the centre of which Theseus slays the Minotaur.
Above plain dados the walls are painted as
stone, with scarlet joints in simulation of ashlaring,
and over the doorways to each of the major
rooms are painted emblems appropriate to their
use. Figures representing day and night appear in
painted aedicules at gallery level on either side of
the hall. The fire-hood opposite to the entrance
door is more severely treated than those in other
rooms, being simply lined out with scarlet jointing.
The garden door into the porch is, like the
front door, bronze covered, this time with a relief
of the Madonna and Child.

According to Burges's brother-in-law, R. P.
Pullan, the decorative scheme in the dining-room
letters of the alphabet are incorporated—with the
exception of H, which has been 'dropped' on to
the onyx below the frieze. In the ceiling the
founders of systems of theology and law are seen,
and on the doors of the bookcases which surround
the room is an illustrated alphabet of architecture
and the visual arts with a scene of artists and
craftsmen at their work on each lettered door.
Pictures of birds by H. Stacy Marks are incorporated
into the backs of the bookcase doors.
Where visible the walls of the room are painted
with a diaper pattern and above the bookcase runs
a continuous deep modelled and gilded frieze of
formalized foliage.

Figure 29:

Tower House, Melbury Road, plans

A wide opening opposite the library fireplace,
furnished with sliding doors and a central pair of
marble columns, leads into one end of the drawing-room.
The execution of the decorative scheme
here seems to have been incomplete at the time of
Burges's death although drawings had been prepared,
and cartoons appear pinned to the walls and
ceiling in the photographs taken to illustrate the
description of the house by R. P. Pullan in 1885
(Plate 86a). The theme in the drawing-room is
'the tender passion of Love' and the chimney-piece,
a fine counterpart to the one in the library,
is carved with figures from Chaucer's Roman de la
Rose. Recently the scheme originally designed for
the walls and ceiling has been executed from
Burges's drawings. The three windows with their
original stained glass are set in deep reveals with
marble linings and ornamented with ball-flower
enrichments.

Back in the hall the stair is approached through
the two pointed arches divided by a marble column
with a carved capital and base. The stained glass in
the windows of the stair turret represents 'the
Storming of the Castle of Love' and the wall
treatment of the entrance hall continues for the
whole height of the stair.

Off the first-floor gallery with its turned wood
balustrade the two main bedrooms and the
armoury are approached. In the guest room on the
street front the theme is 'the Earth and its productions'
(Plate 87a). The ceiling here is painted
with fleur-de-lis and butterfly designs and a convex
mirror in a gilded surround is placed at the
crossing of the main beams along which are
painted frogs and mice. The frieze of flowers
growing au natural within a Gothic arcade, once
obliterated, has been repainted in the recent
renovations.

Burges's own bedroom overlooking the garden
is decorated with 'the Sea and its inhabitants'
(Plate 87b). The elaborate ceiling (Plate 88b),
divided into panels by painted and gilded beams
and semi-shafts, is set with tiny convex mirrors
within gilt stars. Below the level of the corbels is a
deep frieze with fish and eels swimming amongst
formalized waves. The frieze to the chimney-piece
also depicts fish amongst waves, this time
carved in relief, whilst above, on the fire-hood, a
vigorously modelled mermaid gazes into a looking-glass
(Plate 89b). Sea-shells, coral, seaweed and a
mer-baby are also represented.

Figure 30:

Tower House, Melbury Road, elevations and sections

The large room over the drawing-room
originally housed Burges's collection of armour
and was known in his time as the armoury. It now
contains little of interest beyond the carved
chimneypiece with a crocketed gable rising in
front of the hood and three roundels carved
with medieval versions of Venus, Juno and
Minerva.

The storey in the roof, now somewhat altered,
contained rooms known as the day and night
nurseries although Burges had no family and remained
a bachelor to the end of his life). Two
interesting chimneypieces still survive, however.
One represents 'Jack and the Beanstalk', with
Jack supporting the mantelshelf whilst the giant's
head and hands appear to tear through the stonework
above. On the other are three monkeys at
play.

The interior decorations were carried out by a
small army of artists and craftsmen over several
years and were still unfinished at Burges's death in
1881. The names of the specialist firms and individuals
who executed the work can be found in
the architect's own estimate book for the years
1875 to 1881, which contains over one hundred
items relating to Tower House. (fn. 106) Burges appears
only occasionally to have recorded alternative
estimates for the same piece of work, and the
craftsmen who worked at Tower House are in the
main those who had worked, or were still working,
for him on other projects, particularly Cardiff
Castle. All of the stone carving, from the elaborate
chimneypieces to capitals and corbels, was done by
the sculptor Thomas Nicholls. Burke and Company
of Regent Street were the principal contractors
for the marble and mosaic work, and
Simpson and Sons of the Strand supplied and fixed
many of the decorative tiles. The bronze work
for the great doors was undertaken by John Ayres
Hatfield. The carpenter who was apparently
responsible for all the woodwork in the house,
from the joinery to the new items of furniture
made to Burges's specifications, was John Walden
of Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. The figure
painting on the library bookcases and elsewhere
was by Fred Weekes and Henry Stacy Marks,
from whom Burges ordered seventy birds' heads
at £1 apiece. Saunders and Company of Endell
Street, Long Acre, made the stained glass, several
of the cartoons for which were provided by H. W.
Lonsdale. Most of the painted decorations were
executed by Campbell and Smith of Southampton
Row. By 1879, however, other estimates were
being taken for decorative work, particularly in
the guest room, including from 'Fisher', perhaps
of the firm of Harland and Fisher, decorative
specialists used by Burges in the past. (fn. 9)

Some of Burges's decorations were painted over
in the years following his death, and from 1962
until 1966 the house remained unoccupied and
was damaged by vandals. Restoration began in
1966 with the aid of grants from the Greater
London Council and the Ministry of Housing and
Local Government. In 1969 Mr. Richard Harris
acquired the house and further extensively restored the internal decoration. The firm which
had largely carried out the original painted
decorations, now Campbell, Smith and Company
Limited, was the principal specialist contractor
employed. It proved possible to restore damaged
and obliterated decorations and to finish parts
of the scheme which had not been completed
at the time of Burges's death from his own
drawings.

No. 31 Melbury Road

Plates 80
81

Known as No. 11 until renumbered in 1967, this
was the second of two houses in Melbury Road
designed by Richard Norman Shaw. It was built
for the artist, (Sir) Luke Fildes, and in May 1875
Shaw congratulated Fildes on acquiring 'such
a delicious site'. Val Prinsep, who later acted as
godfather to one of Fildes's children, had apparently
informed him that the site was available, and
the position was indeed a commanding one at the
bend of Melbury Road, enjoying vistas to the
south and west, with Holland Lane (now Ilchester
Place) on the east. Shaw had prepared
preliminary designs by August 1875, and building
began early in 1876. The builder was W. H.
Lascelles. Fildes had a friendly—or sometimes
not so friendly—rivalry with Marcus Stone, with
whom he had shared a studio in Paris in 1874.
Each naturally regarded his own house as superior
although they were designed by the same architect.
In November 1876 Fildes wrote, 'The house is
getting on famously and looks stunning . . . It is
a long way the most superior house of the whole
lot; I consider it knocks Stone's to fits, though of
course he wouldn't have that by what I hear he
says of his, but my opinion is the universal one.'
Fildes took up residence in October 1877 and
lived there until his death in 1927. (fn. 107)

Although the house has now been converted into
flats, the red-brick exterior has been little altered
and is one of Shaw's most assured compositions.
Of the original interior, Maurice B. Adams commented,
'Taking it as a whole, Mr. Fildes' house
is more of a residence or dwelling house than some
we have illustrated, and although the studio is,
perhaps, larger than many, yet it does not over-power
the rest of the house'. (fn. 108) As the house faced
south, the studio was at the rear and was lit by a
skylight and six tall windows grouped in three
pairs. As with No. 8 Melbury Road, however,
these did not apparently provide sufficient light
and the central pair were altered in 1881 to
provide the present large four-light window rising
to the roof parapet. (fn. 109) A winter studio was added
in the north-east angle of the house in 1885 with a
day-nursery underneath, (fn. 110) but this has since been
completely altered and unsympathetic first-floor
windows inserted. The studio was provided with
central heating 'by means of hot-water pipe coils
worked from a compact vertical boiler placed in a
heating chamber in the basement'. (fn. 108) It was described by Edward VII, when he came to sit for a
state portrait, as 'one of the finest rooms in
London'. (fn. 111) The studio was approached by means
of a grand staircase leading from an impressive
entrance hall. The provision of generous light
to the kitchen and other basement rooms necessitated
the raising of most of the ground floor well
above true ground level and resulted in a subtle
change of level from the square entrance block,
via the angle staircase, to the main rectangular
north-west block containing the principal rooms
underneath the great studio.

No. 47 Melbury Road

Plate 84a

This building, originally No. 13 Melbury Road
until renumbered in 1967, was designed by
Robert Dudley Oliver for Walford Graham
Robertson, the artist and playwright. Oliver was a
little-known architect who devoted most of his
early years to painting and exhibited at the Royal
Academy, but his obituary in The Times described
him as 'an architect of skill, artistic feeling, and
antiquarian knowledge'. The builder, W. J.
Adcock of Dover, began work in 1892 and a
ninety-year lease of the house was granted to
Robertson in June 1893 at an annual ground rent
of £125 for the first two years and £250 there-after.
The lease allowed the premises to be used
only as a private dwelling or studio. (fn. 112)

As first built the front of the house was only
four bays wide and two storeys high, (fn. 113) but the
lease made specific provision for the addition of
another wing, not exceeding sixty feet in height.
Graham Robertson appears, however, to have
used the house as a studio with reception facilities
for his clients, while he lived at No. 9 Argyll
Road. (fn. 114) An extra storey was added, incorporating
the existing wooden pediment and cornice, and a
new north wing was built to match the existing
south wing, to the designs of Basil Procter, in
1912, when Robertson was no longer the
owner. (fn. 115) The result is a sensitive reproduction
of a seventeenth-century façade, which does not
give the impression of having been created at
different times and by different architects, so
excellently have the 1912 additions been matched
to the original.

Before these additions the ground floor consisted
of a grand hallway extending the depth of
the house, a staircase, an ante-room, and a billiard-room,
while on the first floor there were bedrooms
and a large studio. The rear part of the house containing
the studio was originally much higher
than the front and must have presented a somewhat
strange appearance before the alterations
of 1912. It was also built in a contrasting style,
and the dominating feature of the garden front is a
large Elizabethan-style bay window which rises
through the ground and lofty first floors and is
flanked by buttresses. The house was converted
into flats in 1948. (fn. 116)

For several years, from about 1896, Robertson
shared his studio in Melbury Road with the
brilliant young Scottish 'impressionist' painter,
Arthur Melville, until the latter's death in
1904. (fn. 117)

Nos. 55 and 57 Melbury Road

Plate 84c

A piece of ground to the south of Graham
Robertson's house was taken by Sir Alexander
Meadows Rendel, the engineer, (fn. 118) who engaged
Halsey Ricardo to design this pair of semi-detached
houses, originally Nos. 15 and 17
Melbury Road. Plans were drawn up as early as
January 1893, but difficulties were encountered
in obtaining permission from the London County
Council for the erection of covered ways in front
of the entrances. Approval was not finally obtained
until 1894. Ninety-year leases from 1893
were granted in October 1895 to James Meadows
Rendel, a barrister, and presumably the son of
Sir Alexander, for No. 55 and to Lady Eliza
Rendel, Sir Alexander's wife, for No. 57. The
builders were Walter Holt and Sons of Croydon. (fn. 119)

An illustration of the two houses appeared in
The Builder in July 1894, and in a note for the
same journal Halsey Ricardo set out his reasons
for using the ox-blood-red glazed bricks with
which the houses are faced. 'An endeavour has
been made', he wrote, 'in building these houses,
to recognize and accept the present conditions
of house-building in London—more especially
as regards the dirt and the impurities of the
atmosphere. They are faced externally throughout
with salt-glazed bricks, which, being of fire-clay
vitrified at a high temperature, may be looked
upon as proof against the disintegrating forces of
the London air. These bricks, being virtually
unchangeable, I have had to renounce the aid
that time gives to a building by blunting its
edges, softening and blending its colours; but as a
per contra one has the satisfaction of knowing that
the house is built of durable materials, wind-proof
and rain-proof; and whatever effect one can
manage to secure, that effect is indestructible. In
the case of the usual brick house—whilst the
brick and stone are ageing and weathering, the
woodwork is periodically being renewed (in
effect) by repainting—and the acquired harmony
of the whole is constantly being dislocated by this
renewal; but with these houses, every time the
external woodwork is recoloured the bricks can
be washed down and the original effect—for what
it is worth—maintained.' (fn. 120)

An addition was made to the south-east
corner of No. 57 in a Ricardo-esque manner by
Symonds and Lutyens in 1930. In 1950 the two
houses were joined together and converted into
flats. (fn. 121)

James Meadows Rendel was the first occupant
of No. 55, but No. 57 was taken by (Sir) Ernest
Debenham (fn. 98) and so provided him with that
introduction to Ricardo's architecture which was
to have such a notable outcome in the building of
No. 8 Addison Road.

Commonwealth Institute, Kensington High Street

The Commonwealth Institute is the successor to
the Imperial Institute. An Act of 1958 provided
for the name to be changed and a new building to
be constructed. A site that had originally been part
of the front park of Holland House was acquired
from the Holland estate on a 999-year lease for
£215,000, and Sir Robert Matthew, Johnson-Marshall
and Partners were chosen as architects.
The main contractors were the John Laing
Construction Company, and among several contributions
to the new building from Common-wealth
countries were twenty-five tons of copper
for the roof from the Northern Rhodesia Chamber
of Mines. The new institute was opened by Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 6 November
1962. (fn. 122)

Footnotes

1. was one of the best known dairy farmers in the vicinity of London. In 1847 he married Amelia Tunks, the
daughter of a South Kensington dairy farmer, and shortly afterwards entered into partnership with the other daughter,
Elizabeth Tunks. As well as Holland Farm, which they took c. 1854, they had a larger farm at Epsom. Tisdall helped to
found the Metropolitan Dairymen's Association in 1873 and the British Dairy Farmers' Association in 1876. In 1853 he was
one of the founding directors of the Temperance Permanent Building Society, and at the time of his death in 1892 he was the
Society's President. He was also a prominent member of the Kensington Vestry for many years.

2. sketch-book by E. W. Godwin for 1881–2 contains a sketch plan of three houses intended for a corner site in Holland
Park Road, almost certainly this site. It is not known whether he submitted proposals to the estate.

3. Fox had already sold a small piece of his land which remained on the west side of Addison Road when the course of the
roadway was changed in 1842 (see page 105), and three houses, Nos. 90–92 (consec.) Addison Road were built on the site in
1862 by Silas Rowles of Notting Hill. No. 92 has since been demolished.

7. Maurice B. Adams called it 'the first artist's house of its kind erected in London', and Henry-Russell Hitchcock has
described it as the first English studio-house. Both these judgments should be qualified by the fact that Aitchison was
designing his house for Leighton at almost exactly the same time.

9. Other firms and individuals who submitted estimates and may have carried out work at Tower House included Pole and
Sons of Johnson Street. Westminster, and George P. White of Vauxhall Bridge Road, stone and marble masons; Barkentin
and Krall of Regent Street. goldsmiths; and Hart, Son, Peard and Company, ironmongers. James Moore of Thames Ditton,
bronze founder, submitted several estimates for bronze work in 1880 and may well have cast the figure of Fame which was
later stolen from the dining-room.

10. Conveyance of 17 Jan. 1874 to Earl of Ilchester
in the possession of Messrs. Fladgate and Co.